There is a vast amount of video media available to the consumers. From films or movies to broadcast television programs to cable or satellite television programs to home movies or user-created video clips, there are many repositories, databases and other sources from which the consumers may choose and obtain video media in various formats. The amount of video media available to the consumers continues to grow at a very high rate. Broadcast, cable, or satellite companies often provide hundreds of different channels for the consumers to choose from. Movie rental companies such as Netflix and Blockbuster have tens, even hundreds, of thousands of titles on DVDs (digital video disc) or video cassettes. More recently, the Internet has also lent its unique capability and become a great repository and distribution channel for video media world-wide. Sites such as YouTube have immense video collections, often millions of video clips, contributed by users from all over the world.
Of course, the content of these videos vary greatly. As a result, various rating systems with respect to the content or popularity of the videos have been developed to help the consumers make informed choices. For example, a star rating system is often used by movie critics and viewers to rate movies or films, where the more stars a movie or film receives, the higher the rating. For television programs, the Nielsen Ratings is a well-known system that measure audience viewing results. Movie rental companies such as Netflix or Blockbuster and Internet sites such as YouTube or Amazon allow viewers to rate and/or comment on individual movies or video clips manually, such as by selecting a number of stars for each video rated, and these individual ratings are combined or averaged to provide an overall rating for the particular video. These rating systems often reflect the popularity of the videos.
Video ratings, once obtained, may be used for different purposes. People may choose videos based on their respective ratings. Sponsors, rental companies, or Internet sites may recommend videos that have received higher ratings to their customers or users. Therefore, it is generally desirable for the ratings to reflect the viewers' opinions as closely as possible. Furthermore, individual or personal preferences often play a major role when people rate or select videos. A particular movie may be well received by one individual while disliked, even hated by another individual. Thus, a relatively personalized rating system, instead of one that combines opinions from hundreds or thousands of viewers having very different tastes, may be more desirable in some circumstances.